Page 16 - Suncor 360 - January 2015

14
JAN / FEB 2015
360
FEATURE
CHAD PARK • Executive director and founding member of The Natural Step Canada – the Canadian arm of an international network of non-profit organizations focused on helping organizations and individuals understand and make meaningful progress toward sustainability for more than two decades
ED WHITTINGHAM • Executive director of the Pembina Institute – Canada’s leading energy and environment research organization – and one of 2012’s Clean50, which recognizes 50 outstanding contributors to sustainable development and clean capitalism in Canada
Our world is at a crossroads, and the need to address our collective sustainability crisis has been growing increasingly urgent. At the same time, various stakeholders have grown more and more vocal in their demands for answers and action with respect to the transition to a low-carbon energy future. Leaders are recognizing the need for multi-stakeholder collaboration to address the complex and interconnected social, environmental and economic challenges we all face.
This has been the impetus behind the Energy Futures Lab – a collaborative endeavour between The Natural Step Canada, Suncor Energy Foundation and others to build capacity among diverse stakeholders, tackle sustainability challenges and create breakthrough solutions by learning to think, work and innovate together differently.
It’s all about bringing stakeholders together over an issue that often drives them
apart. To be productive in the quest for solutions, we need to overcome the
While Canada’s energy industry is certainly bigger than the oil sands, the sector has the dubious distinction of producing the ‘high cost, high carbon barrel’ in a world clamouring for a transition to lower cost, lower carbon energy sources.
In the coming year, the spotlight will intensify on an issue more Canadians need to think about and talk about – namely, what are the implications of producing the high cost, high carbon barrel at a time when prices are dropping and in a world where people are paying more and more attention to climate change?
Back in 2011, David Emerson, Chair of the Premier’s Council for Economic Strategy, stressed that “we need to reduce the vulnerability that comes with heavy reliance on energy sales to only one market, the U.S.” In the year to come, finally figuring out how to reduce that dependance and diversify Alberta’s economy will be crucial – and it must
go beyond just promoting oil sands to new customers.
polarization typically wrought by energy issues. We need to move beyond the old ‘goods guys versus bad guys’ narrative, embrace a more collaborative approach, and ask, “How can Alberta leverage its position in today’s energy system to lead the transition to the energy system the future requires of us? How can our present strengths serve as a source of innovation for the transition? How do we move through where we are today to become even better positioned for what the future holds?”
Despite how the media frames it and what many organizations still think, climate change isn’t simply an environmental issue to be mitigated. It’s also a social and economic issue and therefore a strategic business issue. Organizations that have recognized this and are serious about acting on it – organizations like Suncor – are on their way to being ‘fit for the future.’
With hotly contested pipeline proposals and dropping oil prices, we need to take a hard and honest look at our role in satisfying global demand for energy,
and the risks that Canada’s singular focus on expanding the oil sands poses for
our economic growth and resiliency looking forward.
Recently in Toronto, Carbon Tracker's James Leaton addressed an audience of investors about the risk of a ‘carbon bubble’ – the potential for investment in sectors like the oil sands to become stranded as demand moves to cleaner energy sources. It emphatically underscored the fact that as Canadians, we need to pay attention to the risks posed by producing the high cost, high carbon barrel while neglecting the growing economic opportunities in other sectors. If we want a smooth landing in the transition to a lower carbon energy future rather than a rough and painful one, we need to create space to have the conversation.